Sharpton and NYPD team up to get guns off street

Joking that he hasn't always come to New York Police Department headquarters in Manhattan through the front door, the Rev. Al Sharpton announced Friday he was teaming up with Commissioner Ray Kelly to tackle gun trafficking, which has spread terror through the black communities.

Kelly said Sharpton and his National Action Network were going to work with the NYPD Gun Stop program, which pays tipsters $1,000 for information leading to the confiscation of guns.

In addition, Sharpton's group is joining forces with police in a church gun buyback program next month as part of a major Harlem conference on violence, Kelly said. A church has yet to be picked for the event, according to Kelly.

"Gun Stop had been responsible for nearly 5,000 gun arrests in nine years," said Kelly, adding 400 arrests have been made so far this year.

Earlier this year, Kelly and a group of black ministers said most shootings in black communities around the city involved black suspects. Sharpton echoed that Friday and said the reality of gun violence and trafficking needed to be faced by black neighborhoods and leaders.

A recent shooting near his National Action Network headquarters in Harlem was a catalyst to his group taking a stronger stand on guns. "We must be active in stopping gun flow and the gun shooting and the killing in our community - and get beyond our differences and politics to preserve lives," Sharpton said.